What is The Universe?

Basically, everything. All matter, energy and space. Time too, I suppose. Even that which we haven't seen or measured yet.

The question is what IS the Universe, not what WAS it or what WILL it BE. So the answer is that the Universe IS the totality of all matter and energy everywhere as it exists NOW and involves cosmology. What it WAS and what it WILL BE are two additional questions. They DO involve time and have entirely different answers involving cosmogony.

"Now" is an interesting concept if you try an apply it across the cosmos.

speedfreak is right. NOW is an interesting concept when applied to the Universe as a whole. We do not see the Universe as it is now. Because of the finite speed of light, we see nothing as it now, not even the moon. We see the moon as it was about 1.3 seconds ago, the sun as it was 8.3 minutes ago, the planet Neptune as it was about four hours ago, the nearest star other than the sun as it was 4.3 years ago, the Andromeda galaxy as it was about 2.6 million years ago, and the edge of the observable Universe as it was about 13.7 billion years ago.

so whens tea time ?

Time is an illusion. Tea time doubly so.

42.

I can't believe nobody answered that yet.

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Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

So, my 'now' and your 'now' can never be the same 'now'.
...Now I get it! Oops! I meant NOW I get it. No - NOW! Awww, forget it!

jokergirl, what is the question you feel nobody has answered yet? If it's "What is the Universe?", It seems to me that both schlaugh and I answered it. If you feel that something is missing, I urge you to explain why. Hopefully, one of us or someone else can supply whatever you sense te be lacking.

She wasn't saying that, she was saying she was surprised that no one had answered "42" yet.


You know, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

thanks, Drunk Vegan.

the clue's in the name....

so all matter and energy? is space/time a ''thing'' ? or do we just have ratio's between things?

i kinda agree with lee smolin... ie that question needs an answer..

damian 1727, you ask, "Is space/time a "thing?" The indefiniteness of the meaning of the word "thing" makes your question hard to understand. Everything is a "thing" in one sense or another. That the Universe is made up of all matter and energy is about the most that one can say in answer to the question of what the Universe is. As for a ratio between mass and energy, it's not clear to me that there is any answer to that question since special relativity reveals that both are forms of the same thing. I really don't believe that anything more can be said in answer to your question.

From Douglas Florian's book of space poems Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars.

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SimUniverse - Make Your Cosmos!

Includes Planet Maker add-on, as well as Life 4.0.
*MindMaker 0.6b not supported, not resonsible for loss of data, files, programs or any damage to hardware resulting
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SimUniverse - Make Your Cosmos!

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im talking about background independent" theories -- ones where there is no framework of absolute time and space for particles to move against, but rather ones where space and time themselves are integral, evolving, changing parts of the cosmos, and in which there are no static things, only dynamic processes....

being as there can be no outside to the universe....

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smol...n03_print.html

Call me kooky, but as I understand it, there MUST be something outside the universe, for the matter and energy in the universe to exist.

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by definition the universe is eveything so there can be no outside...

Then if energy/matter can neither be created or destroyed in our universe, then how come it is here at all?

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Wow, this is the most arrogant reply I have seen in a long time. Not only did you not get the reference to "42", but you think you answered the question. Correctly, even.